Stay
by Little Creek
Summary: In the dark, it's easy to get confused. And even more so if you've got a concussion. Sequel/alternate POV to "Ink."


**Stay**

Characters: Dean and Sam

Rating: PG-13

Word count: 3164

Summary: In the dark, it's easy to get confused. And even more so if you've got a concussion. Sequel/alternate POV to "Ink."

**Stay**

Dean fights with his hand cuffs, not caring that he's bruising his wrists, only hearing Sam's ragged gasps for air somewhere in the darkness.

"Sam!" he shouts, his heart thundering, "Calm down, you hear me? Sammy!"

Sam's been talking crazy about ink and Dean's sure it's just a concussion, but the coughing and choking… Maybe there really is something over there killing his brother. He struggles desperately, feels the metal cutting into his skin, doesn't even care, because Sam's struggle for air is getting more panicked. Dean's cursing the metal grate he's cuffed to, the people who beat them up and stuck them down here (wherever _here_ even is), cursing his inability to get free and help Sam.

"Sammy, don't you dare do this! Breathe, Sam! If you die down here I swear I'm gonna…"

Dean can't think of a good enough threat, because it's suddenly a very real possibility that Sam's gonna die. He's gone silent, and Dean's heart skips a beat.

"Sammy?" Dean calls out.

There's no answer. Dean can't even hear Sam's breathing anymore.

"Sam!"

Nothing. Dean feels cold and sick. He's gone still, and he can feel blood on his wrists, trickling onto his hands. Sam can't be dead.

"No!" the scream is ripped from somewhere deep inside him.

He feels like crying. He needs to kill whoever did this. He turns his face against his arm, fighting emotion and trying to clear his head. He's getting out of here. He's getting them both out of here. Time skips and fuzzes in and out, but somehow his hands are free, and he's still bleeding.

And Sam's groaning.

"We're gonna get out of here," Dean tells him, forcing his voice to stay strong, "I promise, Sammy. I'm gonna get you out."

"Yeah," Sam replies weakly.

Dean makes his way carefully to Sam's side and as he crouches, his hand lands in something warm and sticky in the dirt. He wipes it quickly on his jeans, trying not to think about what it could be.

"Ok, we're getting out right now, Sammy," he says, and pulls Sam carefully to his feet.

Sam's conscious, but barely coherent, and definitely not aware. He keeps trying to pull away from Dean, making frightened noises in his throat. Dean snaps out his name, trying to get his focus back, but now Sam's on his knees and he's coughing like he's choking or something. Dean catches him before he goes all the way down.

"Whoa, hey," Dean says sharply, wishing he had a light, because he hates not knowing what's happening.

Sam just keeps coughing, his body shaking with the force of it, his fingers digging into Dean's arm.

"Easy, Sam, easy. I've got you," Dean assures him, bracing him so he won't pitch forward.

Sam finally stops coughing, and spits a few times, breathing heavily. He slumps against Dean, kind of curling up to fit under his chin, like he always does when he's scared and hurt. He's still shaking.

"Don't let it get me," he says, his voice weak and shaky and scared.

Dean's heart thumps faster at the fear in his brother's voice. He wants a gun. He needs a light. They need to get out of here.

"What's after you, Sammy?" he asks quietly, in case there's something really out there.

Sam's pretty much snuggling now, and he doesn't seem to be aware of it, his cheek against Dean's collarbone, one hand fisted in the jacket at Dean's shoulder.

"The ink, Dean," Sam mumbles, "It's everywhere, keeps getting in my mouth..."

More talk about ink. Dean blinks fiercely, suddenly desperate for light. He can feel his own heart starting to race, breaths getting faster, and he has to force himself to calm down.

"It's just darkness, Sammy, it can't get you," Dean says, and he hopes it's true, "C'mon, man, get up. We're getting out, Sam."

That last part is true – he's gonna make it true even if it kills him. He pulls Sam up, taking most of his weight until Sam's brain catches up and he can stand properly. And then Sam's pulling away again.

"Sam!" Dean barks out, tugging Sam back, "Stay with me. Don't let go, Sammy."

Sam grabs onto the front of Dean's shirt with one hand, the other wrapped across his back to hold his shoulder. Dean holds him up with one hand, leaving his other free to run lightly across the wall as he walks, keeping him grounded in the smothering darkness. There are no sounds except for Sam's raspy breaths and occasional cough, and the uneven scuff of their boots on the dirt floor. And then Dean becomes aware of a light breeze across his face, and Sam's getting heavier, his feet dragging.

"I gotcha," Dean assures him, tightening his grip, squinting into the dark.

He thinks maybe there's a faint glow from somewhere ahead. With renewed determination, Dean pushes the pace, both hands holding Sam now, his eyes locked on the light. The light is shining under a door, Dean discovers. He gently eases Sam to the ground, propping him against the wall. Sam's only half awake now, his eyes barely open.

"Almost there, Sam," Dean tells him.

He uses both hands to search the door for a handle, or a lock, or anything. There's nothing, just a solid wooden door with a tiny gap of light under it, promising freedom and fresh air. Dean takes a breath of stale air, leaning his weight back, and then taking the half stride into the door shoulder first. The door shakes under the onslaught, buckling, and it only takes another few hits before the door flies open, the lock splintering away. The sudden daylight of a sun low on the horizon burns Dean's eyes, making him flinch away, bringing an arm up to shield his face. From behind him Sam groans, and Dean turns to see him pressed against the wall, head turned away from the door and he looks like he's going to try crawling away any minute. Dean crouches next to him, gentle hands on his face, tilting his head up so he can make eye contact.

"Sammy? Hey. S'ok," he says softly, "S'ok. We're getting out, Sam. I found a door, see?"

Sam stares at him, blinking slowly. In the light Dean can finally see his little brother, and he's a mess. His face is pale under the dust, a bruise forming on his cheekbone and a gash just above his left ear, dried blood matting his hair.

"M'head hurts…" Sam mumbles suddenly, pulling away from Dean's touch.

Dean supports him with hands on his shoulders because Sam's balance is off, making him lean too far to the side.

"Yeah, bet it does. They hit you pretty hard," Dean says, watching Sam's eyes wander past his face.

"Hurts," Sam says again, and coughs, grimacing in pain.

Dean's stomach lurches and he unconsciously tightens his grip on Sam's shoulders. There's blood on Sam's teeth. That's probably what he's been coughing up in the dark, eventually passing out from lack of oxygen while Dean screamed his name, fighting the handcuffs that restrained him.

"Sam, where…?" Dean has to pause, force the tremor out of his voice, "Where else are you hurt?"

Sam doesn't answer, but his hand presses lightly against his chest, and Dean pushes it aside, yanking Sam's shirt up. There are bruises across his ribs that look like someone's kicked him, repeatedly, and Dean feels a rush of anger. He's finding the crazy guy that did this and putting a bullet through his brain – just as soon as Sam's safe at the hospital. Making him walk is probably a bad idea, but their mobile phones are gone and he's not leaving Sam here while he goes for help.

"Ok. Ok," Dean murmurs, "C'mon, Sammy."

Dean gets Sam on his feet again and they head for the door. Sam stumbles at Dean's side, only upright because of Dean's firm hold. They've been walking away from their prison for maybe five minutes, following the dirt road that'll hopefully lead back to civilization, when they reach a sealed road.

"Keep walking," Dean begs, Sam's breaths rough against his neck.

And then there's a car coming along, Dean can see it in the distance, sunlight glinting on metal. He almost grins, relief making his own legs feel weak, opening his mouth to tell Sam. And Sam goes out completely before he can, legs buckling, dragging Dean with him.

"Sam!" Dean can't help shouting, before his fingers find Sam's pulse, fast and unsteady, "You're ok. You're gonna be ok." _Please be ok._

He's on his knees in damp grass, Sam sprawled out in front of him, hair sticking to his sweaty forehead, chest rising and falling with shaky breaths. Dean waves out desperately at the approaching car, and can't help the mumbled thank-yous under his breath when it pulls over. The young man who gets out takes one look at the brothers and motions to the girl in the passenger seat to stay put. He stays behind his open door when he calls out to them, one foot still in the car as if he thinks he might need to jump back in and drive away any minute.

"You guys alright?" he asks.

"No, my brother… we…" Dean scrambles for a lie, a half-truth.

He settles for just stating what should be obvious.

"My brother's hurt," he says.

The man cautiously approaches them, hands spread out like he's trying not to spook Dean, and Dean snaps at him, demands he call an ambulance, and has a few curse words added to it.

"Amy, call an ambulance," the man says over his shoulder, and the girl in the car fumbles for her phone.

Sam makes a soft sound of pain, somewhere between a whimper and a groan, and then he coughs a few times, and his eyes flutter.

"Hang on, Sammy," Dean says softly.

He carefully rolls Sam onto his side, and Sam weakly spits blood into the grass. The man is closer now, and Dean doesn't have to look up to know he's staring in horror at Sam's battered body. His brother is scarily pale and his breathing is shallow, raspy wheezes.

"What happened to you two?" the man asks.

"Some guys jumped us," Dean says, and that's true.

The sun's disappeared below the horizon and there's a chill in the air. The girl – Amy – gets out of the car, still holding the phone to her ear, looking scared. The guy goes to her side and there's a quick exchange of words, and then the guy takes the phone and Amy gets a blanket from the back seat of their car. She's hesitant as she approaches Dean, who's taken his jacket off to use as a pillow for Sam's head.

"I've… I've got a blanket for him," she says softly, holding it out.

Dean nods his thanks and takes it, gently laying it over Sam, and can't think of anything to say. So he just sits there, takes Sam's wrist with gentle fingers so he can feel his pulse, and waits for the ambulance. Without his jacket he's feeling cold, goose bumps rising on his neck and arms. The silence around them is abruptly shattered by the sirens, and then the paramedics are there, pulling Dean to his feet and away from Sam.

"Give us some room," they say.

Sam moans, the sound gurgled through the blood in his throat, and then he's choking again, and there's a blur of movement and there are too many hands restraining Dean, holding him back.

"Don't you give up, Sam!" Dean shouts over everything, "You hear me? Don't give up!"

Everything spins and it feels like the ground falls out from under him, and suddenly the blanket is around Dean's shoulders and he's sitting in the back of an ambulance. A male paramedic's holding his hand, and for a while Dean can't figure out why, until he realizes the skin's broken over his knuckles and grit has stuck to the blood. Dean remembers punching and fighting, shouting for Sam, and then it felt like his head exploded and everything blacked out. He'd woken to more blackness and Sam's harsh breathing. Adrenaline surges through him at the thought, clearing his head. He can hear a siren and the vehicle's engine is rumbling under his feet.

"Sam," he says, trying to stand up, but his head spins and the paramedic pushes him down with a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, settle down," he says gently, "You with me now?"

Dean nods, keeps trying to push him aside so he can go to Sam, even though the world is still titling sickeningly. The only thing his mind seems capable of thinking right now is how important it is to get to his brother, although some part of him realises how irrational he's being. And then he's vomiting into a metal bowl, even though he's got nothing to come up.

"Sorry," he says thickly, embarrassed by how pathetic he is, and trying to get his stomach under control.

"It's fine," says the paramedic, "Just try to relax."

He hands Dean a bottle of water to rinse his mouth out with.

"My brother?" Dean asks, when he's done.

"He's being taken care of," the paramedic replies, putting the bowl aside, "We're about five minutes out from the hospital."

Dean grounds the heels of his hands into his eyes, frustrated that he lost maybe ten, fifteen minutes of time and now Sam's in another ambulance. He'd planned on going in with him.

* * *

><p>At the hospital, Dean doesn't get to see Sam. They're both taken to opposite ends of the hospital, or so it feels to Dean, and the nurse who tends to him looks about fifty (<em>or more<em>) years old who introduces herself as Sue. Dean is just Dean, and he doesn't offer a last name yet. She asks him about his shoulder, the one he slammed into the door, the one he's been absentmindedly rubbing as he waited. She goes all motherly on him when he says him and his brother were mugged and locked up in a cellar for a couple of hours before Dean could get his hands out of the cuffs, and that he had to break the door down with his shoulder to get them out.

"Aw, honey," Sue says, so gently and caringly that Dean has to swallow the sudden lump in his throat.

He looks away.

"Hold still, sweetie," she coaches as she picks grit out of his knuckles, and he flinches anyway because it stings.

When she's got most of it out, she flushes out the cuts with something that looks like water and stings even worse than the picking.

"Shirts off," she says, and he sighs, sliding his long-sleeved shirt off.

His shoulder is stiff and aching, and he can't raise his arm high enough to get his sweaty t-shirt off, so Sue cuts it off, and he shivers at the cold metal scissors touching his skin. She examines his shoulder, and he bites his lip so he doesn't swear, or scream, because she's pressing right on the big bruise he's sure is blossoming there.

"Just bruised," she informs him, and insists he lay down, and then she puts an icepack against his throbbing shoulder.

She starts an IV and puts a soft blanket over him, and he thinks he might never move again because it feels so good.

"Alright, you just lie here and relax for a bit, ok?"

"My brother, is he alright?" Dean asks, which is bad wording because Sam was coughing up blood, of course he's not alright.

Sue pauses on her way to the door.

"He's been taken to surgery, I think," she says, "I'll let you know as soon as I hear something."

She gives him a sympathetic smile and leaves, the door clicking shut behind her. And despite the fear for Sam that should be making his heart race, Dean's feeling warm and drowsy. He blinks slowly, his mind sluggish. _Drugs_. Whatever she put in that IV... Everything's getting hazy.

"S-son of a…"

Everything goes black.

* * *

><p>Dean wakes up an uncertain amount of time later with a dry mouth and a feeling of being watched. He opens his eyes and when the world comes into focus, a man he figures to be a doctor is standing beside his bed.<p>

"Hey," he croaks, trying to sit up, because he feels so vulnerable lying there.

The doctor makes a hand motion that probably means Dean should lie down, but Dean doesn't. He realizes his boots are gone and he's still shirtless. He pulls the blanket up higher to give himself at least a little privacy.

"How's Sam?" Dean asks.

He sees a cup of water on the table by the bed, and grabs it, enjoys every mouthful.

"He came out of surgery an hour ago," the doctor says, and Dean nearly chokes on his water.

_An hour?_ How long was he unconscious for? He asks the doctor.

"Couple of hours, maybe," he shrugs, "You needed to rest."

Dean glares at him.

"Get me my clothes," he demands, angry at himself for falling asleep, angry at the nurse for drugging him, angry at the doctor for allowing it, "I'm going to see my brother."

The doctor kinda wilts under Dean's gaze, and hurries to get Dean the requested items.

* * *

><p>Sam sleeps a long time, leaving Dean with nothing but the beeping and squeaking and muffled voices of the hospital. There's a big white bandage on Sam's chest and a multi-coloured bruise on his cheek, and he's so deeply unconscious that he doesn't even wake when a kind-hearted nurse brings Dean a cup of coffee.<p>

"Thanks," Dean says, letting his tired face break into a smile as he takes it.

She smiles back, kind of embarrassed, twisting her blonde ponytail around her finger. She's tall and pretty, and Dean thinks she doesn't look much like a nurse. He lets his grin get bigger.

"How's your hand?" she asks.

Dean eyes the bruises on his wrist, the skin broken over his knuckles. He's suddenly aware of how filthy he is. He's wearing the same clothes he came in wearing, except the starkly clean white t-shirt a nurse gave him, and he still tastes grit in his mouth. At some point someone gave him his leather jacket back, which he put on straight away even though it was dusty and smeared with Sam's blood.

"…for you," says the nurse, and Dean realizes she's still talking.

"Huh?" he responds, mentally kicking himself for sounding dumb.

She just smiles again, but now it's sympathetic.

"I said, if you want to go a clean-up or something, I can watch your brother for you," she repeats, "He's probably gonna be asleep for a while yet."

Dean shakes his head, leaning towards Sam slightly.

"I gotta stay with him."

He takes a sip of coffee, ending the conversation.

* * *

><p>Sam wakes up sometime between hours four and five after surgery, starting with a stuttered breath and his fingers twitching. Dean surges to his feet, leans closer to his brother, hand light on his shoulder.<p>

"Sam? You awake?"

Sam's eyes move under his closed eyelids, head turning slightly towards the sound of Dean's voice.

"Open your eyes, Sam."

Sam does, only to slam them closed again. Dean's hand presses a little bit firmer.

"C'mon, Sammy," he coaches gently.

Sam's eyes flutter open again, slowly, and Dean feels his face break into a grin, feels some of the tension ease out of his shoulders.

"Hey," Sam says hoarsely, and he licks his lips like he's thirsty.

Dean grabs the cup of water off the table, pokes the straw up to Sam's dry lips. Sam takes a couple of slow mouthfuls, and then turns his head away, signalling he's had enough. His eyes are still glassy as he looks around the room, and then back at Dean, a faint smile on his lips.

"You got us out," he says, words slurred, and his eyes are closing.

Dean puts his hand back on Sam's shoulder, squeezing gently.

"Yeah, I did," he responds.

Sam blinks slowly, losing the fight against sleep.

"Get some sleep, Sammy," Dean urges softly, and Sam relaxes completely, eyes closing and he's out in seconds.

Dean stands there a few minutes longer, the events of the day finally catching up with him. He yawns widely, rubs gingerly at his shoulder. He checks his watch. A few hours before dawn, Dean realizes, and he drops heavily into the chair – a comfortable reclinable armchair, not a generic plastic one. One he can actually sleep in for a couple of hours without waking up unable to move at all. He leans it back and sighs, letting his body relax. He needs to go after the thing that did this to them. But first Dean's going to get Sam back on his feet – and then they'll hunt it down together.

**END**


End file.
